


Nuka-Crossed Lovers

by HealthKitt



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fire, Gen, General Nate of the Minutemen, Lovers to Alleged Enemies to Friends, Overboss Nora, POV Third Person, Somebody is a synth, a little Oblivious Idiots in Love for flavor, and deacon is still the best, and support the Railroad, and why would an ex-soldier dealing with the fallout (ha) set off a nuke?, because why would you waste all those resources??, but Nate didn't blow up the Institute he just ran them out, but danse is post-blind betrayal and alive somewhere i promise, in case anyone needs that, smoke inhalation warning, the bos are dead right off the bat, we also only do happy endings in this house, works in progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:55:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25155841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HealthKitt/pseuds/HealthKitt
Summary: When the Prydwen explodes, General Nate of the Minutemen rushes to find the culprit - and any survivors - and finds a familiar face instead.But isn't Nora dead?Somebody's a synth, no one has the full picture, and everybody's keeping secrets, but that won't stop them from (eventually) getting to a happy ending...As long as the characters cooperate.
Relationships: Preston Garvey/Male Sole Survivor
Kudos: 6





	Nuka-Crossed Lovers

Nate was at the Castle when the Prydwen exploded, and it still felt like it took ages to run to it.

Boston Airport was full of smoke and fire, choking up his throat and obscuring his vision. Preston had been right; he should have grabbed the gas mask, but panic had overridden logic and he'd stormed forward anyway. He could recognize the layout from the Brotherhood of Steel’s posts on the ground, but everything that had been beneath their war blimp had been smothered in rubble and devoured by fire. Nate hadn’t become the General of the Minutemen because he _didn’t_ care about people, however, and so he pushed forward.   
He hadn’t become the General because he was a fool, either, but today seemed to be an exception in that regard; his altruism had far surpassed his self-preservation.   
If there was someone here to save, he had to help them, didn’t he? The Minutemen were ready to help “at a minute’s notice” (and that minute apparently didn’t include preparation for Nate). He didn't agree with everything the Brotherhood of Steel said, sure, but that didn't mean that everyone in it was a lost cause; there were still people like Danse and (allegedly) Deacon, who had once hated with all their hearts and had learned to do and _be_ better. There were people who could be saved, and so many of them deserved the second chance to do and be better.  
Except for Proctor Teagan. Fuck that guy.  
Nate covered his mouth and nose with his bandanna, but dry it did little to help with his breathing, and of course it had no impact on his eyes, which were so clouded and stinging that it looked like it was being viewed through some Old World camera lens.   
But he saw a figure ahead (at least, he hoped it was a person) and that was enough for him to try to ignore the pain.   
As he grew nearer, he could confirm that it was, in fact, a person and not one of the hundreds of mannequins that seemed to plague post-apocalyptic Boston. The stranger wasn't wounded - or didn't look it, anyway - nor did they seem bothered by the smoke and fire surrounding them. That was good; Nate only had a few hundred Stimpaks stashed on him, and those clearly needed to be saved for an emergency.   
The stranger just stood there, watching the wreckage of the Prydwen as the waves of the Boston Harbor quenched flames and lives alike. Any that had survived that explosion wouldn't last long in the water unless they were already in Power Armor, and anyone in Power Armor would have surely gotten out by now.  
The stranger had a gun in hand and a gas mask on, silently signalling that they weren't here for the same reasons as Nate, nor were they as surprised by the event. Were they just lucky enough to be in the area, and also equipped to deal with the presence of a fire?  
No, he saw the emblem on their armor.  
Nuka World.  
He hadn't been so afraid of an amusement park since he was little and that awful bottle mascot towered over him in a family photo, but here he was as a grown and grizzled veteran with his stomach twisting as he saw that logo.   
The Nuka World Raiders were in the Commonwealth.  
He’d heard enough about them to know the threat they posed to the Commonwealth; the unorganized and generally unintelligent raiders within it were already bad enough, and three organized and united groups of raiders from the outside weren’t exactly going to make life easy. He’d already booted the Institute Scientists from their home (because war never changed, but a man who had seen war sure did), allied with the Railroad, and tentatively brokered peace with the Brotherhood. Wasn’t this supposed to be the easy part?   
He’d tried so hard, so why weren’t things better? Would things ever get better?  
More than that, Nuka World was to the West. Why had they passed everything else to get to the Brotherhood of Steel first? Had the constantly crashing vertibirds gotten on their nerves, or was it a show of force meant to put the less militarized Minutemen in disarray?  
The smoke was coating his throat and lungs - had been for awhile, in fact - and he couldn't hold back the coughing that came up. He could, however, try to steady his rifle as he pointed it at the stranger. The Minutemen couldn't abide raiders, and he couldn't trust that he could safely withdraw here. He was too far in.  
But it wasn't a stranger.  
They turned, face so obscured by their mask and body language that Nate couldn’t begin to guess what they were thinking. They hadn’t drawn their gun despite the fact that he was clearly at a disadvantage, but he hadn’t shot them in the back, either. Even the PipBoy wasn’t logging them as a hostile. Maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and scavenged an unlucky shirt.   
What could he even say? ‘Did you do this?’ ‘Is it hot out here?’ ‘Are you not going to shoot me?’   
He didn’t have enough time to settle in on something; his body was quite tired of the shit he was putting it through, and the next coughs that shook him dragged him down to the ground. Even that tasted like smoke.  
Stupid, stupid. Should have listened to Preston. He'd taken down the Kellogg, but he was going to die to _smoke_? He couldn't. Not now.  
Then again, he might die to a raider; he could hear them stepping closer, then felt gloved fingers on his face, sliding down to his chin to raise it up towards them. He couldn't make out their face, and so he didn't know if they found what they were looking for.   
Not immediately, anyway.

The world went in and out, then, as his body grappled with the loss of oxygen and his eyes watered to desperately push out debris.   
He saw the sky, red with fire, and felt the asphalt beneath him cutting into his back.   
His gun wasn't in his hands anymore, but then it was laying beside him.   
He was in the street, but not near the airport, and there was someone kneeling over him.   
He saw her face and thought it was proof he must be dead.  
Her black hair was cropped shorter than the last time he’d seen it, and revelled in the freedom to curl in wild directions atop her head. There was a triangle of it shaved away in front of her ear - a funny thought, considering how afraid she’d been to use his electric razor when she helped shave him. There were lines of white and red across her face, marking scars new and old alike, but the one thing that hadn’t changed at all were her eyes.   
They looked the same as they had the day of their wedding.  
Sure, she looked a little more guarded than she had then, and a lot sadder - there were even tears brimming in her eyes, he thought, or maybe the smoke had gotten to her too - but he knew those eyes. He’d stared into them laying beside her in bed on long, lazy mornings, or while cupping her face in his hands as she made silly faces back at him, or when he told her that everything was going to be okay and that he loved her while a nuclear bomb exploded on the horizon.  
Everything had changed, and so had she, and so had he, but no force in this world or any other could have stopped him from knowing those eyes.  
"Nora." He whispered the name, and while it didn't physically feel good to speak, it emotionally felt fucking amazing to have her name leave his lips and see her eyes widen. There was a smile on her lips, just for a second, but even before she forced it away it was still pained, even conflicted. Was she not happy to see him so soon in the afterlife? Why did she look so different?  
And if he was dead, why did his lungs still ache?   
The world started to go dark again. He heard voices - maybe arguing? - then saw a red streak of light pass into the sky. 

When he woke up again, it was to the sweet taste of oxygen as Curie pressed an oxygen mask to his face. He still felt sleepy, but duty and anxiety soon overwhelmed that and he gently raised a hand to her wrist to signal to stop.   
Curie set her lips into a thin little stubborn line. "Now, Monsieur Nathaniel, we need to ensure that you are receiving proper oxygen."  
Curie had taken to her role as a physician on the surface the same way she’d taken to her synth body: awkwardly at first, but then with increasing comfort and delight. She cared so much about helping people, and so passionately and sincerely that most surface-dwellers couldn’t bear to deny her. Curie was a force of nature, which many people of the Commonwealth knew how to handle, but she was also kind and loving and patient, something that many of these people had never been fully and safely exposed to when it came to a stranger, let alone a doctor.  
Even Nate wasn’t immune to her oh-so-serious stare, and so he sighed in acquiescence and sank back down onto the pillow beneath him. He knew this room (he’d built it, after all), but it certainly wasn’t Curie’s typical choice for providing medical care. They were at Finch Farm, he was fairly certain. How had he gotten all the way here?  
There was someone else in the room that Nate only noticed when they moved; Preston had been slumped in the chair by the door, head bowed as he slept and only stirred by the sound of Curie’s admonishing tones.   
How long had he been waiting for Nate to wake up? Nate knew instantly that was what it was; Preston had a bad habit of looking after everyone but himself. Preston, like Curie, was kind to the point of stubbornness, but at the additional level that he, like Nate, was willing to burn the candle at both ends when it came to taking care of people that he cared about.  
And Preston cared about most people.  
Nate had found him struggling to stay awake to supplement the watch of a new Minuteman, to reassure her that she was doing well and that she wasn’t alone even when he himself was exhausted from a days’ long work. Nate had found him feeding stray animals that were safe to keep around the settlement (and feeding Dogmeat, too), talking to plants to help them flourish, and volunteering to take other peoples’ shifts to cook dinner when they seemed too burnt out to handle it.   
Preston was the kindest man in the Commonwealth, Nate thought, but didn’t know how to be as kind to himself as he was to everyone around him.   
Even now, there was soot clinging to his clothes and exhaustion forming circles under his eyes, and yet...Here he was, lurching upright as he heard their voices, then fixing them with wide-eyed panic before he realized the news was good.   
His expression melted into relief and warmth, and Nate smiled, too, as he watched the corners of Preston’s eyes crinkle up with happiness as he interjected enthusiastically, "Nate! I _told_ the others you were gonna be fine. Nothing keeps our-" He broke off and cast Curie an almost flustered look, then cleared his throat and took a moment to collect himself before he nodded more professionally, "Good to have you back, General."   
He'd been doing that a lot, lately. He'd say something just a little too happy, or lean just a little too close, then get that look on his face and withdraw. It was like there was a spinning magnet between them, constantly pulling Preston close but then pushing him away again.   
Nate wasn’t the most observant man in the Commonwealth, but he’d spent the majority of this last year with Preston by his side, and so even Nate knew what it was. He just didn’t know how to address it. Preston had lost so much and been hurt so badly by people that he trusted. Where could Nate even begin with telling him that it was okay?   
Nora had always been the one who was good with talking to people, and while Nate had certainly improved over the last year, he was no lawyer or therapist. He could only be a friend, and in times like this, he worried that wasn’t enough.   
Whatever he might have thought up to say, he again didn't have the chance; Curie picked up the conversation again to firmly but gently admonish him, "We very nearly did not, Monsieurs. If we had not found you so soon..." She let the sentence hang in the air, but they all knew how it ended: with Nate dead, and his companions crushed.  
Emotionally, anyway. Probably literally, too, given how weird physics seemed to be in the Commonwealth.  
"Yeah, well..." Preston's face so very clearly said that he didn't want to think about losing his best friend. "It's a good thing we saw your flare, General."  
"Flare?" Nate repeated, brow furrowed. "I didn't..."  
The red light. That's what that had been.  
"Nora." He said the name again, eyes wide. Had she been real? The shock of the concept made him lay his head back down on the mattress beneath him. It couldn't have really been her, right? They'd buried her. He had her ring on his finger, with his. She was gone.  
So why wasn’t she gone?   
Preston’s eyebrows raised as he recognized the name, but Curie’s furrowed instead.   
“Monsieur?” She asked inflection high as she inquired while Preston’s dropped low with concern. “Nate…”   
He didn’t hear Preston say his name a lot, he realized, but he liked the sound of it. He’d have to think about that later, when he wasn’t worrying about his deceased (ex-?)wife.. Kellogg had admitted to killing her, and he had been a professional. She had to be dead. And necromancy wasn’t a thing now, right? Sure, Nate had seen aliens and synthetic humans and _teleportation_ , but…  
Ah, shit.   
_Please_ , he thought, _Don’t let necromancy be a thing. I can only deal with so much._  
His friends were still watching him in uncomfortable silence, he realized, and Nate laughed uncomfortably as he dragged his attention back to the room. “Did you...Was anyone else there when you found me?”  
“No.” Preston shook his head with a positively apologetic look. “We still swept the area for survivors, but you...You weren’t where we were expecting, General.”  
“Because you thought I’d be at the airport. Right.” Nate tried to sit up on his elbows, but Curie shot him a warning look that had him sinking back down into the bed instead. She was a sweet woman, certainly, but she was also obscenely intelligent and had access to scalpels.   
“I passed out at the airport.” Nate admitted, and tried to look at Preston’s kind but exasperated face rather than Curie. “But there was someone there. Not a member of the B-O-S, but...Someone I thought I recognized. From before.”   
He swallowed hard, but there was a lump in his throat now that wasn’t from all the smoke inhalation and the gesture alone had him coughing again.   
The world went a little white as he coiled up onto the bed in his coughing fit, and so he felt rather than saw Preston’s hand reach out for him and gently hold his hand. It comforted them both, and Nate squeezed the hand back firmly. Maybe a little too firmly, what with all the coughing, but Preston still didn’t retract his hand from Nate’s clawed grip.   
Curie waited patiently with water, the oxygen mask, and several scraps of fabric. She’d even scooted a trash can (the solid kind, not the mesh kind) over to the side of the bed, which Nate presumed meant this coughing was going to make things go through his mouth in the wrong direction. Great.  
“Monsieur Nathaniel Wren,” Her tone was still gentle, but the use of his full name made Nate’s skin crawl as if he’d just upset his very placid-seeming, very southern grandmother. He probably couldn’t jump out of a window from here, right?  
“You need to rest.” She continued her admonishment with no hesitation despite his state, and given that it was his own fault he was here and she was helping him out of the kindness of her heart, he could hardly complain.   
“I know, Curie.” He mumbled once the coughing had subsided. “Sorry.”  
“You can apologize by healing expeditiously, no? Plenty of water and rest, and being honest about how your body is feeling. You may need to cough up quite a bit of mucus to clear out the soot.” Curie informed him. “Keep your head propped up, but stay in bed. We will have to see if we can procure cough drops. Perhaps we could order some? They will not help with the cough, but they will ease the soreness of your throat…” She’d lost herself in her own plan-making, and traversed to the other side of the room to make a list of what they would need for Nate’s recovery and, presumably, that of any survivors the other Minutemen had recovered.   
As she mumbled to herself in French, Preston gave Nate a small smile, and Nate gave one back.  
Nate dropped his voice low to give Curie no quarter for interrupting their conversation again; no matter what he needed to do to recover or to process what he may or may not have seen, he was still the General, and there were time-sensitive matters to address.   
“While I’m out...I need you to do some things for me, Preston.”  
“Anything.” Preston replied in a heartbeat, eyes locked onto Nate’s. He meant it, too.  
Nate let out a quiet little laugh - did he sound awkward? - then cleared his throat. The smile was still on his face despite the topics at hand, but Preston just tended to...Do that. He was such a warm, kind presence who cared so much, and Nate was an absolute idiot who hadn’t put two and two together yet.  
“There’s…” He cleared his throat again, earning him a glance from Curie, and gave her an awkward little wave. He waited for her to return to her list before he told Preston, “The person I saw...They had on Nuka World clothes. They might not be part of them, but…” He trailed off and tilted his head pointedly.  
“Doesn’t hurt to be prepared.” Preston agreed. “I’ll make sure our patrols know what they’re looking for and are well-equipped. We’ll need to check in with all of the settlements, too, make sure they didn’t already get hit, and shore up their defenses...And make sure they have the supplies to hold out for a while if they get penned in by the raiders.” He paused for a beat, then amended, “And warn Diamond City and Goodneighbor, of course.”   
Nate had that dumb smile on his face again. He might have noticed his face hurt from it, if the rest of his body weren’t busy howling agony at him from the inside.   
“Why am _I_ the General, again?” Nate asked Preston.  
Preston stopped his planning to give Nate another grin, this one a little less shy than the last. “That’s easy, General: can’t think of anyone in the Commonwealth that wouldn’t do right by following you.”   
There was that awkward, flustered laugh from Nate again. Since when did he have such a hard time talking to Preston? He _knew_ Preston. He knew Preston _so well_!  
“Monsieur Garvey.” Curie interjected again, but far more gently than she had been with Nate. “We need to let him rest.”  
“Right, right.” Preston squeezed his hand again, and in that moment Nate realized they’d been holding hands the whole time. His face started to tingle and Nate, being the fool that he was, wondered if he’d managed to pick up some kind of fever from the fire. Or had he gotten burned in the face…?  
“I’ll visit again tomorrow.” Preston assured him. “And I _think_ I know someone else who is going to want to see you, if it’s all right.”  
“Shaun.” Nate realized, and gave Preston a strained smile in response. “Of course.”  
Shaun was another person that Nate shouldn’t have been able to see, but that he did. That was easy enough to explain; he’d seen the proof of it himself, back when he’d found the real thing. The real Shaun had been very different, and the child that he’d expected had proven to be nothing more than a synth.   
Was that what was happening with Nora? Was she a synth who wore his dead wife’s face? But how, and why? And what, if anything, could he tell Shaun before he had the answers to those questions? How could he face him knowing that she could be out there and he couldn’t go look?  
And what would he tell Preston, if his wife was alive?  
His hesitance wasn’t lost on his best friend, but Preston only gave him a curious and vaguely worried look before he was shooed out the door by their dear doctor dame.   
The lights flicked off, and for a moment Nate was left in the darkness with nothing but his thoughts swirling around him and exhaustion weighing heavy on his bones. Time passed, and Nate’s eyelids grew heavy. He did sleep, for a time, but was awoken by a change in the room.

The door opened and a thin beam of light appeared, then disappeared as someone passed through it and closed the door again.   
There was no mistake of which ally would slink into his hospital room with news, particularly not when he leaned against the foot of the bed and Nate saw that he was still wearing sunglasses in complete darkness.  
“I don’t wear sunglasses in houses at night, and I still stub my toes.” Nate remarked, and saw the glint of Deacon’s teeth as he gave him that tilted, oh-so-casual grin that warned Nate that there was more to this visit than just Deacon checking up on his well-being.   
“Didn’t I tell you?” Deacon kept his voice innocent, “Raised by mole rats. I can dig a mean hole, too. I’ll show you sometime.”  
Deacon and Nate were friends, but they weren’t so close that Nate really knew how to maneuver conversations with him. The majority of Nate’s talents with communication came from honesty and sincerity and so Deacon, as a liar and a _good_ one at that, was terribly confusing.   
Nate liked him just fine, just as he’d liked Nora, but it always felt like there was more going on in these conversations than he knew about.  
Which was concerning when it was just the two of them talking.  
Nate tried to prop himself up on his elbows to sit up, but Deacon waved a hand at him dismissively. It seemed like nobody was going to let him do that just yet, and so Nate sank down yet again with a heavy sigh.  
He saw one of Deacon’s eyebrows appear over the upper rim of his glasses, then vanish again. “I’ll, uh, keep this brief, boss. But I looked into that thing that you asked about-”  
“Nuka World?” Nate clarified, and could just feel the exasperation from here. No matter how hard Deacon had tried to teach him, subtlety and Nate just didn’t mix.   
Which had made the whole Railroad thing kind of a mess for Nate, but they were both trying their best.   
“...Yeah,” Deacon allowed after a moment, then waved a hand, “But, uh, you ‘hear about that radscorpion’?”   
The new Railroad challenge; Deacon wanted to make sure Nate was really Nate. Couldn’t blame him for that, Nate supposed.  
“Yeah.” There was a beat of silence as Nate tried to recall the countersign. “Fell right in...The ocean?” Nate’s inflection picked up just a bit at the end; he sure _hoped_ that was right. What was he going to do if he ever forgot one of these things? It wasn’t like he could write them down. He’d written down his terminal password once and taped it to the monitor, and Nora had taken great glee in providing footnotes to some of his files to make her point.   
So Nate didn’t write down passwords anymore, but he wasn’t sure he could remember them, either.  
His awkward, fumbled countersign was enough to assuage any concerns Deacon had for now; his shoulders relaxed just a smidge, though Nate could have sworn they already were.  
“You’re...Not gonna like the news, boss.” Deacon warned him.  
“Do I ever like news?” Nate asked with a sigh.   
Deacon opened his mouth for another quip, then thought better of it and looked away. He even rubbed the back of his neck, a rare show of his discomfort in these situations; that meant this was going to be rough.   
“Looks like...The Institute sent us one last ‘fuck you’.” He said, voice lower and quieter in the way that signalled when Deacon was taking things seriously despite the weird attempt at levity in his words.  
Nate wasn’t the quickest on the draw when it came to subterfuge, but this was simple math and he knew his wife’s face.  
“Does it have to do with someone with my wife’s face being a part of the Nuka World Raiders?” He guessed. “You’re a few hours late for that one. I think.” How long had he been out, anyway?  
Deacon let out a low whistle. “Aside from a couple of details, that’s the gist of it. See, she’s not just a ‘part’; she’s what they call the ‘Overboss’. In charge of the whole shindig. Every bloodthirsty raider and captive trader answers to her, and I’m not exactly buying a season pass to go back. It’s...Not pretty.”   
He didn’t even make a joke about the lack of cotton candy machines or anything, which attested to how grave it had been indeed.  
Nate squeezed his eyes tightly shut and let out a long, slow breath, then grimaced at the crawling sensation in his throat and rolled onto his side to cough up into the trash can. Curie was right; the mucus was black with soot.  
That couldn’t have been the most fun to watch, but Deacon didn’t look away. Instead, he grabbed the glass of purified water - from Codsworth, probably - and moved it closer.   
Nate gave him a grateful smile, then plucked up a scrap of cloth from beside it to wipe his mouth instead.  
“Still leaves us with one question.” He noted.  
Deacon, having placed the glass where he wanted, took another step back and turned his gaze towards the window. He took a moment to himself, then turned back with that little fake grin and the higher voice again. “Just one? I mean, I’ve got a _few_. Like, did they all agree on the name ‘Overboss’, or..? ‘Cause I can think of some cooler titles right now. What kind of tax breaks does that place get? And what’s with the teddy bears? Because some of them totally had those strapped to their armor. Do you get one when you pass the hazing or is it, like, a coming of age thing?”  
Nate liked to think that he and Deacon had become friends in the last year, but knew well there were defensive shells that Deacon still had. Even now Deacon craved the normalcy of levity in the face of vulnerability.   
Nate couldn’t bear to take that away from him, but he couldn’t bring himself to laugh, either.   
“Which one is Nora? The one that saved me, or the one that’s dead and buried?” Nate put a voice to his worries, just to get them out of him and into the world. They both knew that one of them had to be a synth, didn’t they?   
“If she has her memories...Is there much of a difference?” Deacon countered, voice low again.  
Nate sighed, and they sat in silence again.  
It was night outside, from what little he could hear out the window. Curie had a painting hanging over it - probably to keep the sunlight from keeping her patient awake - but that didn’t stop him from imagining what was behind it.  
“She always liked stars.” He noted, but Deacon didn’t reply to that. There wasn’t anything to say when they both knew how this had to end.   
Nora was in charge of the Nuka World Raiders, and Nate was in charge of the Minutemen.   
It was inevitable that they would fight one another, and that it would end in death like so much else in the Commonwealth. Sure, he’d managed to balance out the other factions of the Commonwealth in relative peace, but raiders were murderers and pillagers. He’d been ready to kill her before he saw her face, so how could he justify hesitating now? People were going to get hurt, and killed, or worse. He couldn’t hesitate just because of the face she had.  
He just couldn’t think of Nora, of _his_ Nora as the Overboss of a bunch of heinous raiders. She’d been a lawyer, sure, but because she thought she could repair the system from the inside out. She wouldn’t have done this.   
And if she was so far gone, “Why did she save me?”  
That was the other question burning in his mind, but the smoke was still burning his throat, too, and so Nate closed his eyes for a moment, just to rest for a second while the conversation had a lull.  
He didn’t have it in him to kill her, he already knew, and the pain of that showed in his expression even with his eyes closed.  
Deacon didn’t have an answer for his question, but broke the silence anyway; he cleared his throat and stood up. “I really wish I had answers for you, pal. Seriously, I do. But…” There was something he was just about to say, Nate thought, but was too tired to press Deacon for answers, so Deacon backtracked and said instead, “Anyway, I’ve still got more on my plate, and you know how grumpy Carrington gets when he has to wait. Well, grumpi _er_. Be back before you know it.”  
He slipped over to the door, quiet as a ghost (the quiet kind, not the wailing kind), and added softly, “We’ll figure this out. Promise.”   
Though Nate couldn’t see it, there was that grin again, then it - and Deacon - were gone.


End file.
